Write a paragraph on the topic 'Man was born free but everywhere he is in chains' in about 60-70 words.
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When the French Philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau used these dramatic opening lines in his treatise “The Social Contract”, what he really meant was that man leads a truly free and unrestricted life till he enters society. He meant to say that man was born inherently good but becomes corrupted by the pernicious influences of human society and the institutions created by it.
Once man realizes the existence of civil society around him, all his liberty and freedom vanish. He starts living an artificial life: a life lived more to show off to others, rather than one lived for oneself; a life lived against the tenets of nature .He becomes formal and sophisticated, greedy and wicked and lives an ostentatious life full of pomp and show.
This life, lived by man, is not natural-the way God meant us to live life.
Rather it is pretentious, and makes man follow double standards. He becomes civilized, yet a hypocrite.
Social, Martial and Government laws and conventions, impose chains upon him which bind him. These chains of restraint, restriction and limitation are the real obstacles in the path of progress in his life.
To be born free literally means not to be born to slavery. This encompasses, broadly to include mental slavery too. However this is exactly what society does to man-it enslaves us to a great extent.
The child has to do what the parents say; in school he has to obey his teachers, and at work we have to do what the boss says. Family life itself also acts like a chain, keeping us locked in our mental prison.
A husband is expected to be an honorable role model, having a job, which provides for the family. A wife is expected to cook and take care of the home and have children. Children in turn are expected to get good grades and behave.
All these expectations are added by society. In fact since his birth itself, the chains of prejudice, based on caste, creed and color are set loose on man by society.
Although ,some of these “chains”, it may be argued, are necessary and desirable to maintain law and order and for the orderly functioning of society, a vast majority of them are merely applied upon us ,by others around us, based on what they believe to be commonly and morally acceptable.
This system of artificially induced, interlocking chains, makes it nearly impossible for people to be who they truly are. Thus most often, the people we meet turn out to be true facades of themselves, because they constrict to the chains society has cast upon them.
To be really free, man will have to cast aside these chains and listen to “his inner voice”.
He will have to undertake what I term as the small, but lengthy journey from his mind to his soul. Even Socrates has said that to be really free one needs to explore oneself, or take the “journey within”. I quote “ A person is born free under the laws of justice, but already in chains by the same laws, because they the freeborn cannot examine themselves to find there is no less difference between rule over a free man and rule over slaves, than between what by nature is free and what is by nature slavish” Unquote.
Even Aristotle, in his book ‘The Politics,’ stated that any rule or authority puts chains on people, whether for order or punishment. He said “freedom is existent because of politics and yet taken away by politics to ensure equality for all.”
The scriptures have said that only those who repent can be fee and reach heaven. Saint Augustine said “Good man, although he is a slave is free, but the bad man, in spite of being free, is a slave”. The bad man is enslaved in the chains of dead habit, by his own doings. Aristotle goes on to say “The struggle for power and selfishness, that they think can bring the freedom, is leading them away from freedom. Everyone is born with the same freedom, yet it is how that person will maintain that freedom, that tells us which people will put themselves into chains.”
When Adam was born he was absolutely free. Free he was, even in the Garden of Eden, till such time he ate the forbidden fruit.
This was an act of passion, which immediately cast upon him the chain of morality.
This implies that man must, despite their various passions live lives out of reason. Passion can get swayed. Reason cannot. Thus passion needs to be tempered with reason for judicious living.
John Luke has stated that most men can live lives in a world of freedom, but it is for those who do not use reason, that there has to be law. To control, and if need be to punish them . However, as soon as these laws are made, a little freedom is taken away from everyone. This does mot mean laws should not be there.
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